Chandigarh, June 13
When the inmates at Rohtak shelter home were given a white powder,
they had no way of knowing that it was not tooth powder. It was only
when they were forced into sexual encounters at a guest house near the
Rohtak bus stand did they realise that the white dust was not what
they thought it was.

This and many more startling facts about abuse by policemen,
torture and exploitation of minors in Rohtak’s shelter home have
come out in a damning report submitted to the Punjab and Haryana High
Court this morning.

The victims were abused by cops, outsiders, and others; were told
to garland the men they went out with; and made to undergo abortions
by “inserting foreign objects in private parts”.

On Holi, colour was put on their private parts; and their children
were sold off in the garb of abortion. The victims were kept naked for
“long periods” and photographed. They were even forced to perform
yoga - naked. Some “elderly girls” were taken away at night for
dancing and immoral purposes. Children as young as five complained of
“perverse sexual abuse in form of oral sex”.

The victims were even taken to temples and forced to commit thefts.
Heads were shaved for the “wrongs committed by them”. The medical
report of one victim suggested she was HIV-infected.

The damning report, submitted by two members of a commission
appointed by the high court, is based on the interviews of 101 inmates
- now putting up in different centres.

For the purpose, the commission visited 12 centres. A probe by the
CBI or any other independent agency has now been recommended by the
two members.

At Bal Kunj, Chhachhroli, in Yamunanagar, 12 children, shifted from
the shelter Apna Ghar in Rohtak narrated tales of being “physically
abused, brutally beaten, often kept naked, made to consume liquor and
regularly work as farm labourers by Jaswanti, who ran Apna Ghar".

They were made to go without food for two to three days, forced to
sweep the premises, wash utensils and do other menial work". Two
"elderly" girls complained that they were taken to hotel
rooms where policemen used to "sexually abuse them, which was
repulsive, painful and agonising".

Things were hardly any better at Nari Niketan in Karnal. Five girls
there alleged they were “sexually molested” and “made to suffer
abortions by giving tablets and inserting foreign objects into private
parts”.

The stories narrated by the inmates at Mother Teresa’s
Missionaries of Charity at Panipat were even more appalling. The team
found “frozen, blank expressions, presumably due to addiction to the
white powder”.

The women complained of sexual molestation at the hands of
Jaswanti’s son-in-law Jai Bhagwan, driver Satish, policemen and
other outsiders.

The boys, on birth, were “sold to people in the garb of
adoption”. Girls were reared for ultimately using them for immoral
purposes.

At Swadhar Shelter Home in Gurgaon, the victims said they were
forced to consume liquor before sex. They were photographed naked and
“Satish, Jai Bhagwan and the police used to have sex with them. Jai
Bhagwan and Satish videographed each other while doing sex.”

At Sahara Ashram in Rohtak, 35-year-old inconsolable Ramwati said
Jaswanti inserted scissors into her private parts after she complained
of her baby being sold off.

As the report was placed before a vacation Bench, the High Court
questioned the rationale behind filing the report without taking the
other two members of the committee into confidence.

The vacation Bench headed by Justice LN Mittal also asked one of
the members about what the "tearing hurry" was as the
deadline given by the high court to submit the report was July 11.

House of Horror

The damning report submitted to the Punjab and Haryana High
Court on Wednesday gives details of abuse by policemen, torture
and exploitation of minors in Rohtak’s Apna Ghar

The victims were abused by cops, outsiders, and others; were
told to garland the men they went out with; and made to undergo
abortions by “inserting foreign objects in private parts”.